After Shipwreck. By J. A. Owen. (Authors' Co-operative Publish- ing
Company.)—This little volume, composed largely of sketches of New Zealand life, has in every sense a realistic look,—that is to say, both the adventures of the authoress, and her other experi- ences, which, being mainly spiritual, can hardly be described as adventures, bear the appearance of having actually occurred. The first story, in which what follows in the wake of a collision is described very simply and naturally, has nothing of the genius loci about it; but when Mrs. Owen writes of New Zealand, with which she is specially familiar, as in "Major von Tempsky," she is seen at her best, telling an essentially religious story in flowing English. "Mad Tom Powers," in which there appears "a once well-known figure in Honolulu," and into which both piety and leprosy are in- troduced, is also an excellent story of its kind. Mrs. Owen would seem to have travelled all over the world, and she is exceptionally skilful in describing a journey either by land or by sea. We have not for a long time seen a book which is so pervaded with evangelical religion, and in which nevertheless that religion seems so unobtrusive. Mrs. Owen is quite certain to produce better work than either this volume or that which preceded it.
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